29/Mar/17 - Informative Letter from the Devs about Chapter 5

This is the last thing I am going to do for the next month, as the next post of Flint will probably be next week.Don't know what I am talking about? See the announcement on the Home and more directly Thread:12369.

The notes begin with a sentimental tone. It goes along the lines of gratitude for keeping up with the game and being emotional while looking back at the game's start roughly 3 years ago.

Stat improvement

Flint mentions that due to the game's long run time, during which a lot of changes, new features and ally improvements have happened, the limit for some Stats has been reached.They mention ATK Speed, Critical stats and so forth, and truth to be told, as the Critical Damage cap is currently at 1000% in Korea, they cannot raise the ceiling any further.Because of that, basic formulas and the numerical standards will be adjusted. This means

A general decrease of all values. We can likely expect everything to be divided by 10 or similar, keeping the balance as it is, but reducing all numerals to a manageable value. It seems like they will implement harder diminishing returns, which is disappointing.

Numerical Change

As everyone knows, diminishing returns are the major factor which currently keeps the stats as they are. They are applied as units level up, increasing the higher the level, or when equipment is added to the pool.

In Chapter 5, the diminishing returns for "Defense Penetration" and "Critical Chance" will be increased even further, while "Critical Damage" and "ATK Speed" which previously enjoyed an unhindered growth, will now feature diminishing returns.[1] Apparently, Flint hopes to solve the numerical inflation problem and allow for a better Party growth in the future with this.

EVA and Accuracy

There are changes incoming for both of these stats. They tried to explain their relationship in a over simplified manner:

Accuracy Chance to perform a successful attack during battle

EVA Chance to evade such an attack during battle

And here their really broken down relationship "Formula"
In reality factors such as the level difference and skills can influence this greatly.

The unit stats will be improved accordingly to allow easier understanding of such relations.

Improvement of Damage Formulas

Because the constant additions of new skill aspects, especially new buffs that came into play, damage calculation has become complicated, as they say. Due to that, they are aware of the RNG factor that increases without fail. Anticipating the damage dealt for strategic play has become impossible. They mention the minimum and maximum damage especially.

In Chapter 5 they plan to solve this problem with new and simplified formulas. First, a basic summary for the damage calculation concept (again, over simplified here):

So obviously, Damage and ATK increase mainly due to buffs (they even felt the need to mention an example). Flint wants to make that even clearer, though.

Changes to Buffs

Currently, when a new Buff is applied, the duration of the initial Buff is reset and refreshed. That is the basic rule to Buffs.

The course of a battle can vary tremendously with the very nature of buffs and buff removals.

In Chapter 5 the player will supposedly be able to influence the stacking of buffs and the rules with which they are applied.[2] The buffs and debuffs are going to stick for their very own duration (which points at the possibility of much less buffs during battle).Also, they seem to specifically mention that the Buff and Debuff auras from dead allies, which are currently still applied occasionally, will be fixed and will then not longer apply post-death (which would probably also affect Revenge of Belphegor tag tactics).

Changs to Battle

Currently, the chance of being hit, actually, more specifically the chance to become a target is determined by the Hit Chance (see Formations).

In Chapter 5, there will apparently be changes in that regard to Roles individually. Rules are going to change to prefer targets with high Hit Chance (which should already be the case right now).

"See below": 대에게 받은 데미지 비율 something I was not aware of yet, so probably the new thing. Apparently, the "Proportion Of Recent Damage Received"

That value slightly decreases over time. They note that Taunts and similar skills overrule the above.

Additionally, they mentioned that in case of the Melees, they will keep attacking the targets "in front of them".[3]
I believe that this should only be the case as long as the unit is not CCed in the process, which makes them return to their position in the formation.

Allies and Unit Changes

Apparently, many changes are coming for Allies, as "various parts" have been disappointing thus far.[4]

Ally Rebalance

Because the stats are being improved, and they mentioned various times that they are going to represent that in the descriptions much better, they also promise a full rebalance all allies.

While only allies is said and transcended mentioned in another sentence, we can most likely expect another rebalance.

Additionally, the cost of Essences required for their Enhancement will be reduced as they are necessary for the Transcended Essences.

Thus they will also eliminate the trouble to farm all 3 different Essences.

Retention Effect System

Flint is doing everything right with this.
This new system (보유 효과 시스템, boyu hyogwa siseutem or Holder of effects system)ⓘ will allow all units to keep being necessary.

Details are to be released in the actual patch notes, but this system will allow the player to aquire special passive skills for the Transcended allies that are used by meeting the necessary requirments, which seem to be having the necessary units to unlock such a effect (ex. for the ATK increase passive, Transcended Deathcrown, Mercedes and Gram are needed.)There seem to be a total of 12 possible effects.

Transcended Titans

They confirmed 12 total Transcensions for this race and the first wave will be Atlas and Tethys.[6]

The Transcended Titans are confirmed to require just what everyone expects. Titans + Gigantes, which make up the first 6 Titans.

The 6 others are to be announced and released later on. Exciting.

New Characters

Flint is awfully aware of the weakness of the Characters. They claim to make Characters "the true leaders" of the party again.

Transcended Characters

With Chapter 5 Characters will automatically be transcended[7] The quest to awaken a Character will therefore also be removed. In summary, a hard revamp.

The Character also seems to be able to over power Keys, according to Flint. Additionally, it seems that they can no longer equip Keys. (Questionable what Keys will be used on then).

"Simple but powerful skill system"

Currently, SP are granted for leveling up and are used to level up Character skills. In Chapter 5

Active skills will have three grades (increasing order): Normal, Ultimate and Transcended, while only one skill can be transcended.

Those skills will be similar to the current ones.

Passive skills will be handled similarly. Details in the actual upcoming notes

Additionally, each Character will have a unique passive skill to offer which represents their class and role (unique and niche; Making roles and classes more distinguished will be a general goal for Chapter 5)

Enhancing Characters

Enhancing Characters will be different to Ally Enhance. The player requires request referrals (의뢰서, ulieo)ⓘ. Appearently, those will also be available through Daily Dungeon, which was announced to be reintroduced.

Details about this system with the actual patch notes.

Start Dragon Blaze with a level 120 Character

Apparently all players can create a free level 120 Character through the new Character Creation screen (most likely the image at the beginning of this section).

All Stages up to chapter 4 will be unlocked

Jars will no longer be available because of that

Only 1 free Character can be created per class, per account

Incanter

For use of this raw, mind the license by clicking "more information"

Flint is comedically aware that they left us waiting for 3 years, but the Incanter Character will finally be available.

New Features

Rune System

The previously teased Rune system (룬 시스템, run sisteum)ⓘ will empower the skills of the 7 Classes (as mentioned, empowering and making all Classes useful in their very own right seems like the number 1 goal of Flint).

The Character of that Class and all its units will be affected by Runes. The level of the rune seems to be checked through unit portraits. Therefore, as they mentioned, Arena frames and similar will no longer be available.No further details until the patch notes.